“The north remembers, Lord Davos. The north remembers, and the mummer’s farce is almost done. My son is home.”

“Foes and false friends are all around me, Lord Davos. They infest my city like roaches, and at night I feel them crawling over me.” The fat man’s fingers coiled into a fist, and all his chins trembled. “My son Wendel came to the Twins a guest. He ate Lord Walder’s bread and salt, and hung his sword upon the wall to feast with his friends. And they murdered him. Murdered, I say, and may the Freys choke upon their fables. I drink with Jared, jape with Symond, promise Rhaegar the hand of my own beloved granddaughter…but never think that means I have forgotten. The north remembers, Lord Davos. The north remembers, and the mummer’s farce is almost done. My son is home.”

“The North remembers.”

“Learn this now and learn it well. Like a compass facing north, a man’s accusing finger always finds a woman. Always. You remember that, Mariam.”

“It is well to remember that the stomach governs the world," wrote Churchill when planning the feeding of his troops on the north-west Indian frontier at the tail-end of the nineteenth century.”

“Seeing that my words had done absolutely nothing to pull North from whatever depths he was clinging to, Owain did what came naturally. He smacked North upside the head hard enough to send him sprawling into the window. And when it seemed that North would turn around and return the favor, Owain hit him again, harder.”